OT (and SIAP): Why ESPN is Struggling
I take no pleasure in people losing their jobs. I take even less pleasure in such a thing when people are losing their jobs because of what appears to be gross mismanagement. Here is a link to an article explaining how ESPN appears to have HIGHLY overpaid for certain broadcast rights, and did so just as it made a huge mistake that cost the channel millions of subscribers:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/espn-made-two-critical-mistakes-132855270….
P.S. There is a link to other articles within this article that have more hard numbers. They basically confirm the thrust of this article, however...
October 27th, 2015 at 6:01 PM ^
I haven't watched their day time programming in years but the few times I have seen segments posted on social media it has solidified your point about talking heads.
October 27th, 2015 at 9:04 PM ^
ESPN used to be the best fallback channel because you could usually look up and see something interesting, but now its usually just talking heads and draft kings commercials.
October 27th, 2015 at 3:42 PM ^
This is in no way OT, given that the B1G will be taking bids for a television contract in the near future, and given that a vast majority of the B1G's income currently comes from their contract with ABC/ESPN.
October 27th, 2015 at 3:44 PM ^
good to know
October 27th, 2015 at 5:42 PM ^
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October 27th, 2015 at 6:04 PM ^
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October 27th, 2015 at 3:42 PM ^
I'd only pay for ESPN during CFB season. The rest of the content on their channels is total crap.
October 27th, 2015 at 3:49 PM ^
Not a basketball fan?
October 27th, 2015 at 4:07 PM ^
I'll admit to being a fair weather basketball fan. When Michigan or the Pistons are having good years I'll watch some games, but it's not appointment television like football is.
October 27th, 2015 at 5:55 PM ^
thats what we do. we have TV during college football season. 4 months max. unplug after the nat'l championship game and no TV for the next 8+ months. saves money and time.
October 27th, 2015 at 7:32 PM ^
October 27th, 2015 at 8:34 PM ^
but like all jobs, my main job (and the farming) ebbs and flows with how busy and how stressful it can be - at a pretty busy point the last couple of months which gets old fast, especially when coaching football and a whole bunch of other family stuff is going on. however, home life itself is a blessing and that is a daily constant for which i am extremely grateful. not having TV helps in its small way too.
unplug hatter. do it. unplug....
October 27th, 2015 at 5:26 PM ^
i have cable at all, for college football season.
October 27th, 2015 at 3:45 PM ^
October 27th, 2015 at 4:38 PM ^
They aren't struggling because of their content - it's a couple things.
1. They allowed the cable companies to unbundle them from the cheapest package and more and more people are taking advantage of it.
2. They seriously overbid for rights to many of the sports they cover. I'm talking degrees of magnitude overbidding.
...and who suffers from this? It's the producers and writers who put together the really worthwhile stuff like 30 for 30 and ESPN Documentaries. It's a shame but it is totally self-inflicted.
October 27th, 2015 at 5:39 PM ^
Eh, the article left a lot of unanswered questions with respect to the TV rights issues. For one, I highly doubt that the negotiation for TV rights follows the typical highest bidder model because ESPN has lower total viewship than NBC/Fox/CBS because they're on cable. Thus, a dollar from NBC/Fox/CBS is worth more than a dollar from ESPN, since going to NBC/Fox/CBS increases exposure for the NFL by penetrating more households. Plus, ESPN makes more money per viewer than NBC/Fox/CBS since they receive $6 per subscriber when NBC/Fox/CBS don't, so the live rights are worth more to ESPN than to NBC/Fox/CBS.
In order to truly determine whether ESPN overbid for TV rights, you'd have to do a complicated analysis of the added subscriber revenue brought in from the TV rights and the value perceived by the NFL in selling rights to a channel with more viewers (NBC/Fox/CBS) vs. a channel with less viewers (ESPN), which neither Yahoo nor the article they cited did, so the conclusion is kind of bunk (though it might still be true--even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in awhile).
October 27th, 2015 at 6:10 PM ^
They are limited to a set amount of minutes per show they can use and all of that is negotiated for and paid for heavily. The reason NBC and CBS and others pay less is they don't have all of those other shows they need to fill with NFL content.
And ever wonder why you see videos online that use photos instead of video from NFL games? It's because they are limited on what they can show there too.
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October 27th, 2015 at 8:26 PM ^
ESPN didn't help themselves when they began phasing out all hockey content. Hockey is at best the fourth most popular sport, and it's very regional, however they have millions of die-hard fans. It's not smart to isolate yourself from a fan base of a few million potential viewers.
October 27th, 2015 at 4:48 PM ^
ESPN broadcasts a lot of sports. I like that about ESPN and hope it continues.
The other stuff? Don't care, don't watch, doesn't bother me. No gun to your head, etc.
October 27th, 2015 at 4:53 PM ^
October 27th, 2015 at 5:43 PM ^
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October 27th, 2015 at 9:09 PM ^
Agreed. I think we definitely need them. They probably should reduce the number of channels so they have more, better content. I don't know if having SEC ESPN was a great idea. May be, May be not. I am sure they alienated some fan bases by doing that.
October 27th, 2015 at 3:50 PM ^
When the "Rumor" section was started on espn.com. The rumor section was essentially make up any sort of bullshit you can think of and claim to have an anonymous source. As soon as they started fabricating stories, and creating narratives, they were destined for downfall.
After that was the vomit inducing Tebow coverage, continued with Manziel and Michael Sam, and then for a lot of people the last straw was Jenner.
ESPN strayed from simplicity, people originally tuned in to see SPORTS, not politics.
October 27th, 2015 at 3:51 PM ^
October 27th, 2015 at 3:55 PM ^
Did you know Michael Sam was gay? I didn't know that until ESPN told me 7,689 times over a two week period even though he was a marginal player who had little chance to ever be an actual NFL player.
October 27th, 2015 at 3:47 PM ^
October 27th, 2015 at 4:05 PM ^
I'm the same way. I used to watch ESPN constantly, but now I only watch the actual sport they're broadcasting. SportsCenter is not compelling anymore because I can get scores and highlights on my cell phone whenever I want without having to put up with the announcer's schtick. Also, I absolutely can't stand sports talk shows, of any kind on any network, except for maybe PTI. (I used to love The Sports Reporters with Dick Schaap. Is that still on?) Speaking of which, why can't BTN just air any athletic contest, and replay them, instead of all their unwatchable studio shows??? If Michigan is playing, whatever the sport, I'll watch! Gerry DiNardo and Chuck Long talking? I'll pass.
October 27th, 2015 at 3:49 PM ^
Then filler shows of the same content but instead of highlights they give you lists, graphs, charts and two opinions. Over and Over and Over again. It's like when Mtv kept running Duran Duran's The Reflex every 22 minutes but they struck gold with Reality TV. ESPN is in the same spot as The Reflex video with no Real World drama to bail them out. Fox Sports 1 took talent and market share as well.
October 27th, 2015 at 3:54 PM ^
I can only speak for myself, but I don't watch sports as much because they are on ESPN, TBS, TNT, etc. more. I'm sad to say I haven't seen a single inning of playoff baseball (until tonight) this year. It sucks, but I simply won't pay for cable. It's way too expensive. I'm priced out.
October 27th, 2015 at 4:00 PM ^
how little you miss it, no? I get cable for M football but usually cancel afterwards and shockingly, life goes on when you cut out most televised sports.
October 27th, 2015 at 4:06 PM ^
I am a huge baseball fan so I really do miss it for that. The NFL is actually mostly on basic non-cable channels. The NBA? Ha! I won't ever watch that league again. It was literally found to be fixed a few years ago. I can't believe anyone actually watches it.
The real shame is you can't find hockey anywhere, even with cable (I live in Kentucky).
I will always love Michigan Football, Basketball and Tigers Baseball, but the rest are really not a part of my life anymore and it feels pretty good.
October 27th, 2015 at 4:38 PM ^
October 27th, 2015 at 3:56 PM ^
I remember being in Bristol, Conn. before the the company was around. It's a blue collar town, really.
ESPN overpaid for rights fees because it wanted to assure its status as the alleged Worldwide Leader in sports. You can only do this when you overpay and pretend that doing so makes you better than everyone else. It's like CBS saying that it has the most eyes watcing its all-consuming eye programming. Really. Who the fuck cares in such a cut-up marketplace where everyone is groveling for advertising dollars.
The fact that ESPN has overpaid rights fees and cut its workforce as a result is meaningful only as an indication that the days where it used to dictate tems and cable firms groveled, means viewers are smarter and technolgy has offered more options that ESPN now has to consider.
This trend will only continue. ESPN was once a fledgling firm whom nobody thought much about. Berman has been there since the beginning, which is why he is still there because really how much fun is his schtick at this point?
Sorry, I can't worked up about Charlie Steiner negativity over the loss of jobs at ESPN. He hasn't been there for awhile and he is the go-to guy for reaction? That tells you how others feel.
October 27th, 2015 at 3:56 PM ^
Not to mention their new website is f'ing terrible. I went back to cbs sportsline.
October 27th, 2015 at 4:01 PM ^
their new website sucks; I can't find anything. I used to read bloomberg.com and espn.com only for my news and sports and now both their websites are so terrible I barely go to either.
October 27th, 2015 at 4:00 PM ^
ESPN is paying $1.9 billion annually to air "Monday Night Football," and other NFL content across its various platforms. That's $800 million more than the next closest competitor. Ourand says people are skeptical there was even another bidder within $500 million of that number.
The sad thing is that I could see ESPN throwing out absolutely ridiculous numbers without having any effing clue what the competition is actually offering, only doing this so they are sure to get the rights. When you see that they could have saved - oh, half a billion minimum or thereabouts - and still probably gotten the deal, that's just incredible mismanagement of the money, the money that easily could have kept the staff on.
October 27th, 2015 at 4:13 PM ^
Is largely why Chairman Goodell is safe in his position, monetizing the NFL and getting insane deals like this make his position secure.
October 27th, 2015 at 4:22 PM ^
That's the part the jumps out as unfathomable.
If I were a journalist, I would investigate that more deeply.
Laymen, artists, engineers, chemists, singers, cooks, etc. they all leave money on the table, because "business" is not part of their skill-set, and they're self-employed.
But, how does multi-billion dollar organizationlike ESPN, with the amount of business people and laywers they can sure afford, end up over-bidding by $500-Million dollars?
That's the real story. How does bidding work? What's the process? How was that mismanaged? Specifically.
October 27th, 2015 at 5:23 PM ^
If I were a Disney exec, I'd investigate it more deeply. Not that Disney is hurting for money but $500 mill should get their damn attention.
October 27th, 2015 at 6:15 PM ^
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October 27th, 2015 at 4:13 PM ^
First of all HGTV is great, I'm with the other guys who watch that more than ESPN. And this isn't good news for the big ten if ESPN doesn't have money to drive up bidding for the big ten network.
When bundling and sweetheart deals for conference fees do fall through I think we will need to see a re-organization of schools. Sure you can talke about traditional rivalries but the schools that carry enough interest to drive revenue need to stop subsidizing the shit programs and form a super conference. I'm pretty sure I can figure out how to care more about a game against Texas than one against Purdue and I'm sure Texas fans feel the same way about playing Michigan or Iowa State. If a school can't make money on its own I'm not sure why getting to be in the same conference as Michigan, Ohio State, and Penn State means they should get a cut of the pie.
October 27th, 2015 at 4:30 PM ^
October 27th, 2015 at 4:37 PM ^
I miss how Sportscenter used to be...each highlight of an NFL or college game seemed to go through the entire game. It was at least a couple of minutes of pure highlights with quick replays of the big plays and quick, sharp analysis throughout. Then they would shift to the next game, and the next game, and so on.
Now it just seems like they throw 2 or 3 highlights of the game and cut to whatever weird gossip or repeated topic that they've been talking about for way too long.
October 27th, 2015 at 4:46 PM ^
And see how much time their anchors and on-screen personalities are on TV and how much actual sports is on the screen...it'll blow you mind.
SportsCenter now is just a bunch of people talking about sports, it's never about the highlight or a video recap.
October 27th, 2015 at 7:26 PM ^
it's minimal highlights and then a ton of talking heads. Usually there's an unneeded amount of attention on just 2 or 3 games as you said.
ESPNU is what I watch for CFB highlights. They actually show them still off the main channel
October 27th, 2015 at 4:39 PM ^
October 27th, 2015 at 4:40 PM ^
Aside from the things the article mentions, as other posters have said, there's large segments of ESPN I seriously cannot stand to watch.
It's not just people being disinterested or being priced out/cutting cable (which I've done), but die hard sports fans can't stand to watch a lot of programs on the world wide leader in sports? That's impressive how bad that is, driving away people who used to be most interested in your product.
Add in the fact that they outbid themselves for their only content worth watching? wow
October 27th, 2015 at 5:13 PM ^
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